Sarena Ulibarri's Blog, page 5

Why You're Wrong About the Oxford Comma

First of all, there is no one more horrified by that blog title than the editors and authors at the small press I run. They may well organize a mutiny as soon as this is posted. So aim your vitriol at me, not at World Weaver Press. Most of our books do employ the good ol' Oxford comma.

Second, the Oxford comma is often a Band-Aid that covers up other structural problems within a sentence. Just... hear me out, okay?

Ever since the Oxford Style Guide dropped the serial comma in 2011, there have b...

Two New Stories Coming Soon

Okay, "soon" may be an overstatement, but in any case, I'm happy to report two new stories that should be out later this year. "A Chorus of Voices," a Lovecraftian secondary-world fantasy about an ambitious monk who realizes not all the vibrations they're chanting are for the good of the world, will appear in the November issue of Weirdbook Magazine.

Also, my solarpunk story "Riding in Place" is part of the Biketopia anthology from Microcosm Publishing. It's the fourth in their "Bikes in Space...

Three Question Interviews with Authors from The Best of Bad-Ass Faeries

I encountered author and editor Danielle Ackley-McPhail via Broad Universe, an organization for women working in speculative fiction, and was immediately intrigued by her "Bad-Ass Faeries" project. So she wrangled together a few of her authors and let me ask them just how bad-ass those faeries are.

The authors below are all contributors to eSpec Books’ upcoming anthology The Best of Bad-Ass Faeries, which is currently funding on Kickstarter. The book is a reprint anthology featuring the highli...

Interview with Matthew Burnside, Author of Postludes

I first met Matthew Burnside a massive Facebook group called MFA Draft when we were both applying to MFA programs. The group was set up so applicants to the many creative writing grad programs could share support and anxiety while they waited for those acceptance calls or rejection notices. Matthew was one of the many memorable personalities in that group. I, certainly, was not, but many of them friended me anyway, and I love seeing where their paths have taken them now that we've all finishe...

Astra, the Falling Star published in KasmaSF

My story "Astra, the Falling Star," a surreal sci-fi about two astronauts whose ship is destroyed while in orbit around an alien planet, has been published online by KasmaSF Magazine. KasmaSF publishes a new story each month, and I have the privilege of being their February author. They were nice enough to publish my apocalyptic Cassandra retelling "As Dust Rolls Toward the Mountains" a few years ago, and I'm thrilled they liked "Astra" as well. KasmaSF commissions original artwork by José Ba...

Release Day: Some Kind of Magic by Mary Ann Marlowe

Usually, I prefer to promote books on my blog that fall into the (broad) category of speculative fiction—it's what I write, it's what my company publishes, and it's what most (though certainly not all) of my writerly friends write. Mary Ann Marlowe's debut novel Some Kind of Magic is going to sit squarely on the "Contemporary Romance" or "Romantic Comedy" shelves, but I'm going to argue it's got a speculative slant to it. There's a bit of a "Love Potion #9" theme going on here, and a "what if...

Story Behind the Story: "Post Apocalyptic Poodle"

Not a poodle. Husband, leaving for work: "I'm off to save the world."

The Dog: *whines*

Me: "This dog appreciates it. He doesn't want to be a post-apocalyptic dog."

Husband: "Yeah, he doesn't look good in spikes. He's not tough enough to hang with the other post-apocalyptic dogs."

Me: "It's true. All the dogs you ever see in post-apocalyptic stories are, like, Pit Bulls and German Shepherds. You never hear about post-apocalyptic poodles."

And so he went off to work, the dog eventually stopped whin...

Cover Reveal: Promises of Virtue by Randi Perrin

The first cover reveal I hosted on my blog last summer was for Randi Perrin's debut novel, Virtue of Death , a paranormal romance about a woman who runs a successful bakery by day and is an angel of death by night (and the handsome food critic she gets tangled up with, of course). Now, I'm pleased to hear the second novel in the Earthbound Angels series will be landing February 4, 2017. The protagonist of Promises of Virtue is Cheryl, the snarky best friend from the first book, so it's sure to...

Interview with Gregory Scheckler, author of Moon Dust Infinity

I first met Gregory Scheckler at the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction in Lawrence, Kansas, a two week intensive writing workshop. I was in the novel workshop with Kij Johnson, and Gregory was in the short fiction workshop with Chris McKitterick, but the two groups socialized plenty outside of workshop time. I encountered him again when he submitted a story to an open call at World Weaver Press, and I was happy to include his story "A Persistence of Ghosts" in my anthology Speculat...

Interview with Tara Campbell, author of TreeVolution

I first came across Tara Campbell's writing when we both had stories in the Dear Robot anthology (see my "Story Behind the Story" post about that anthology here). Her epistolary Dear Robot story, "Nickerson Interstellar Student Exchange Behavioral Contract," is brilliant, so I'm sure her newly released novel, TreeVolution will be brilliant as well. It's about genetically modified trees who start attacking people in what the book's description calls "a little eco-payback."

In this week's interv...